Uganda and U.S. Foreign Policy

Washington's relationships with the “leveraged allies” preferred by realists—those countries that have little choice but to follow America's lead—have long been considered more reliable than in its relationships with the “natural allies” favored by idealists: prosperous, democratic nations that share the goals and interests of the United States. President Bush's foreign policy requires these natural allies, but many U.S. government officials are more wary. Uganda under President Museveni is a model “natural ally” candidate, with its relatively humane and democratic internal policies, but its greater capacity to act without American leverage, approval, or supervision is likely to worry realist career diplomats.     

The power of oppression: Understanding the history of criminology as a science of oppression

Conclusion Following, or perhaps even being swept away by the propositions and suppositions of science, criminologists have written a rather sanitized, carefree history of the origins of their discipline. This discipline has much to hide, however, and criminologists' strict adherence to principles and claims of ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ have helped hide the unspoken task that is criminology from view. There is a need to excavate the hidden history of criminology from the basement of scientific criminology. This excavation requires the use of tools sensitive to oppression and conflict. Using such tools to recover, rewrite and explain the history of criminology, I have argued that criminology should be (a) interpreted as one of the many ‘sciences of oppression’ that (b) emerged following the Enlightenment (c) whose purpose was to help legitimize and place into practice principles that justified the oppression of the dangerous classes, (d) which had emerged as the primary threat to the ‘rational’ societies based upon capitalist social, economic and political relations. I suspect that this will not be a popular conclusion. The traditions of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. Karl Marx,The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte     

Critical perspectives on the federal budget deficit debate

While the current political process is adjusting somewhat to the problem of persistently growing federal deficits, the authors, nevertheless, argue that major constitutional and legal changes are needed. The problem is serious and the authors believe that many of the solutions advanced are not likely to be successful. However, they do offer a possible solution of their own. Airing this complex issue should help others understand the problem and the debate about possible alternative solutions.

The organization of this article stresses (1) the federal budget deficit problem, (2) major solutions advanced to meet the problem, and (3) the recommended solution of the authors.     

Mapping the Racial Bias of the White Male Capital Juror: Jury Composition and the “Empathic Divide”

This article examines the nature of racial bias in the death sentencing process. After reviewing the various general explanations for the continued significance of race in capital cases, we report the results of an empirical study in which some aspects of racially biased death sentencing are examined in depth. Specifically, in a simulated capital penalty‐phase trial setting where participants were assigned to small group “juries” and given an opportunity to deliberate, white male jurors were significantly more likely to sentence black defendants to death than were women and nonwhite jurors. This racialized pattern was explained in part by the differential evaluation of the case facts and the perceptions of the defendant that were made by the white male jurors. We discuss these findings in light of social psychological theories of contemporary racism, and we conclude that the demonstrated bias in capital jury settings should be understood as an interaction of several factors, including individual juror characteristics, group‐level demographic composition, and group deliberation processes.     

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

The federal sentencing guidelines have lost some authoritative force since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a series of recent cases that the guidelines are advisory, rather than presumptive, in determining criminal sentences. While these court decisions represent a dramatic legal intervention, sociolegal scholarship suggests that organizational norms are likely to change slowly and less dramatically than the formal law itself. The research reported here looks specifically at the consequences of such legal transformations over time and across locale, using multilevel analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission sentence outcome data from 1993 to 2009. Our findings suggest that districts vary considerably from each other in sentencing practices over the time period studied, and that there is relative within‐district stability of outcomes within districts over time, including in response to the Supreme Court's mandates. We also find that policy change appears to influence the mechanisms by which cases are adjudicated in order to reach normative outcomes. Finally, we find that the relative district‐level reliance upon mandatory minimums, which were not directly impacted by the guidelines changes, is an important factor in how drug trafficking cases are adjudicated. We conclude that local legal practices not only diverge in important ways across place, but also become entrenched over time such that top‐down legal reform is largely reappropriated and absorbed into locally established practices.